Perspective
by Valerina
Summary: Outsiders look in.


PERSPECTIVE by Valerina  
  
Rated PG  
  
Summary: Outsiders look in.  
  
Spoilers: I suppose small (very small) ones for THE END and LAZARUS  
  
Classification: MSRish, H  
  
Disclaimer: They're mine, all mine...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Well, Babs and Jack and Bob and Mike are, but as for that AD and two agents who shall remain nameless aren't.  
  
AN: First of all, this story was posted way back when, back at a time when I worshipped CC as a god and wrote fanfic under the name of Lara (as it is posted at Gossamer) to amuse myself instead of going to class. So, that being said, I'm reposting it in honor of the XF Finale. *Sniff* Ah, fond memories :)  
  
FEEDBACK: Valerina719@HOTMAIL.COM  
  
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"Oh please! They've gotta be screwing around! How can you not see that?" Barbara asked her partner Jack, nearly throwing her beer across the table in her incredulity.  
  
Bob bobbed to his right in order to dodge Barbara's flying beer. He grabbed her arm and pulled it back down to the table. "Barbara, you need to calm down! Not everyone can see what you can see-they're just partners! Just like you and Jack, and just like me and Mike here." He smiled as he put his arm around his partner and squeezed him in a mock hug. Mike made a face and pushed Bob's arm off of him.  
  
Barbara rolled her eyes. "Definitely not like you and Mike!"  
  
The four FBI agents sat around a booth at their favorite bar, drinking away the pressures of their day. Jack flipped his wrist, checked his watch to make sure that his wife wasn't waiting up for him, and ordered another round for him and his coworkers.  
  
Barbara refused to give up, however, and pressed the issue again. "But you have to see the way they look at each other!" The other agents just looked at her. She continued undaunted. "And the way he touches her back as they go into a room..." her voice trailed off as she realized she wasn't getting through to her friends.  
  
Bob snorted. "There's nothing between them." He sounded bored with the topic and took a sip of his beer. Mike shrugged.  
  
"I don't know...there might be something with what she's talking about. I mean, remember five or so years ago? He was regular ladies' man..."  
  
Barbara interrupted, exited that someone was actually giving her theory some serious thought. "Yeah! He used to ask out any female agent without a ring on her finger."  
  
Jack looked unimpressed. "Your point?" Barbara sighed, exasperated.  
  
"Don't you see? He's no longer playing the field because he's already with her!"  
  
Bob still looked doubtful. "Hmmm...I guess that might explain why she's so, I don't know, cold. Every time a man tries to talk to her she just kind of brushes him off."  
  
Jack laughed. "I think you're just bitter that she shot you down a few months ago."  
  
Bob shot him a haughty look. "Please. I'm sooo over that."  
  
The group giggled at his awful impression of a typical teenage girl. Barbara didn't laugh as long as the others and she started to speak on behalf of the female agent.  
  
"Y'know, guys, being a woman in a man's world isn't exactly fun and games. She's not cold, she's just professional." Jack sent the other men a glance that warned them off the topic. After all, no one knew better than him how Barbara could go off on these feminist tangents. Mike caught the glance and nodded.  
  
"You're right, Babs, it's just that she doesn't seem as friendly as some of the other female agents. You know," Mike started, "when I was still in Violent Crimes, I worked with them on a case. The case itself was pretty weird, but with them working it, who expected anything normal?" The rest of the group nodded with an assumed understanding.  
  
"Anyway," Mike continued, "the way they just...sort of...clicked. You know, like finishing each other's sentences and even moving in sync. It was downright..." he lowered his voice for effect, "...spooky." The table burst into loud laughter.  
  
Jack shook his head and just laughed along. "You guys are looking way too hard for something that is not there! I mean, c'mon, Barbara. Look at us! We've been partners for almost as long as they have, and I think that we can safely say that we can keep our hands off each other, right?"  
  
Barbara rolled her eyes. "Gee, Jack. I think that was kind of due to the fact that you were married when we first became partners. The two of them are most decidedly single, and they have been for quite some time."  
  
Bob interjected. "Wait a minute-that's not really true...he had that tall chick when he first found his little 'pet project.'"  
  
"Yeah, and she was linked with that instructor back at Quantico," Mike added.  
  
"Please," said Barbara, "that was eons ago." She stressed the word by banging her empty mug on the table. "The only reason they're not seeing anyone else is because they've got the hots for each other."  
  
Bob snorted. "What a way for the number one female agent in the Tactical section to talk." Barbara glared at him and was about to open her mouth with a retort when the ringing door caught everyone's attention.  
  
The foursome at the table stared as the two agents who had been the subject of their countless discussions walked through the door. The man shook his umbrella out and placed it in the rack near the door to let the result of that evening's thunderstorm dry off. He put his hand on his female partner's back as he guided her to a booth towards the back of the bar. They sat down facing each other, and from the angle that the other agents were at, only the woman's face was visible.  
  
"See," Barbara hissed, "he did that thing with her back a minute ago." Jack rolled his eyes at her but didn't comment.  
  
"Do you think we should go over and say hi or something?" Mike asked.  
  
"Nah, I don't think they'd even notice. Look at them talk-they must be really involved in something."  
  
The two agents were having a heated conversation, and the woman seemed to get more frustrated with each passing moment.  
  
"So, what do y-" Bob started.  
  
"Shh!" Barbara cut him off. "I'm trying to hear what they're talking about," she whispered as she leaned closer to the table. Unfortunately, the rowdy atmosphere of a bar on a Friday night made it nearly impossible to hear the intense conversation going on over a hundred feet away. Barbara sighed and, giving up on eavesdropping, turned back to her companions.  
  
Jack decided that as much fun as discussing their colleagues' sexual relationship was, he decided that a change of topic was in order. He cleared his throat and searched for something that would get his own partner's mind off the two agents in the corner. Suddenly a loud crash broke through the din.  
  
The female agent had sent her own beer glass crashing to the floor. She stood up, eyes blazing, and stalked out of the bar, leaving her partner sitting in the silence. He stood up and muttered a few curses under his breath as he pulled out his wallet. He threw a few bills on the table to cover what he and his partner had drunk. Practically flying out of the restaurant, so desperate was he to catch his partner that he left the umbrella where it sat at the door and rushed out into the pouring rain.  
  
He didn't have to go far, as his partner was waiting outside the door. "Damn," Barbara muttered and tilted her neck to try to get a better view of the feuding couple through the bar's front windows. The rest of the bar had gone back to normal, forgetting the incident that had occurred only moments before, but the four FBI agents sat transfixed by the scene unfolding outside.  
  
The man stood only inches away from his diminutive partner, towering over her. To her credit she didn't flinch as he screamed in her face, only tilted her head up to meet his eyes and screamed right back. This went on for about a minute before he grabbed her face and kissed her deeply. When relating this to her coworkers later in the week, Barbara would swear that the kiss lasted longer than the discussion outside had, but that would be stretching the truth just a little bit.  
  
Their lips finally parted, but they remained connected through the touch of his hands and the eye contact that they maintained. The two stood there just looking at each other, her with water streaming down her face, hair plastered to her head; him caressing the sides of her face just barely as water dripped of his nose and onto the lapels of her coat.  
  
Although it wasn't apparent to the foursome in the bar, a silent decision was made. His hands slid down her face and joined his arms at his sides. He stood there another second before turning back towards the bar door. The bell dinged as he reentered, and the four agents tried to appear as in conspicuous as possible as they pretended that they hadn't spent the last minute staring out the window. The man grabbed his umbrella from the stand without looking into the bar and hurried back out. He opened the umbrella and the woman joined him under it. He placed his hand at her back and propelled towards the car at a decidedly hurried pace.  
  
As soon as the two were out of sight Barbara clapped her hands in delight like a child who had just found what she had always wanted under the Christmas tree.  
  
Mike brightened. "Hey, isn't it the twelfth of the month? I do believe that that means that I am the gr-"  
  
Barbara grabbed Jack's wrist and turned it around so that she could have a clear look at the watch face.  
  
"Aww, too bad, Mike, but it's after midnight...that means that some other lucky soul gets all that money. Hey, who's got the thirteenth anyway?" Jack was stumped and shrugged his shoulders.  
  
Bob looked into space for a second, deep in thought, until a smile broke out slowly on his face. He turned to his partner, and pulling a quarter out of his pocket, said, "Alright, Mike, I'll flip ya to see who gets to call the Assistant Director."  
  
end.  
  
****  
  
Okay, that's it, go home!  
  
Wait! First, lemme know if you hated it enough to print it out just to have the extreme pleasure of burning it, or if you loved it enough to frame a copy and put it over your bed. Hell, tell me if you just read it! Valerina719@HOTMAIL.COM 


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